


Everything and Nothing

by astano



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-25
Updated: 2011-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:22:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astano/pseuds/astano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was no way a simple night out with drinking and dancing could get you into trouble, was there?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You know you should really tear your eyes away from the scene in front of you but, just like a train wreck, all you can seem to do is stand there, eyes fixed firmly on a body doing what can only be described as _writhing_ to the music blaring out of the club’s sound system.

A sudden thought of that same body writhing under completely different circumstances flashes through your mind and you start to feel too warm all over. You’re sure, should anyone actually be able to make out the finer details of your face in the darkened room, they would be able to see the blush starting to colour it.

Suddenly you hear _him_ , it’s enough to snap you out of your fantasy and remind yourself that the object of your... well, it can only really be called perving, actually has a boyfriend and is completely off limits.

“She’s awesome, isn’t she?” He asks.

Mutely you nod your head not quite trusting that you could manage to stop the traces of desire from coating your voice should you speak. It probably wouldn’t matter though, he’s not the most perceptive of people and, coupled with the amount he’s drunk already, you’d probably have to actually grope his girlfriend before he’d even notice anything was going on.

Once again, images flash unbidden across your mind and your breath actually hitches in your throat.

You turn to the bar and order another drink, at the last minute requesting two shots of tequila to accompany it. It’s a bad idea, you know, you’re already on the edge of losing control and alcohol is only going to make that control slip further but you need to try to do something to numb your brain.

Half an hour and several shots later you’re actually having a good time. You’re on the dance floor lost in a sea of people, music thrumming like a second heartbeat throughout the whole of your body. With your eyes closed, lost in the rhythm of the song you can almost pretend that she’s not here, that she’s not here with _him._

That is until you feel her arms winding around your waist, pulling you close and then the light pressure of her chin resting on your shoulder. You suppress the shiver that threatens to run through your body and decide the alcohol really, really isn’t helping.

You swear you can actually feel the hard peaks of her nipples grating against your back as she sways with the music. Heat pools within you and you’re pretty sure a low growl escapes your throat before you have chance to bite it back.

You decide there’s really only so much more you can take before you do something in the middle of the dance floor that you’re both going to regret come morning so wrenching yourself out of her grip you stumble through the press of bodies looking for the bathroom, hoping the bright lights and quiet will give you the small break you need to wrestle your hormones back under control.

Dimly you know she’s going to follow you so it doesn’t come as a surprise when seconds after you enter the door bursts open again and she’s striding up to you.

“Do you want to tell me what’s gotten into you tonight,” she asks.

And you can’t, you just can’t. You can’t find the words and you most certainly can’t manage to raise your eyes from where they are studiously memorising every detail of the back of your hand. At this moment you know she would see your soul laid bare in a heartbeat if you were to look into her eyes and you just can’t. You can’t do that to her.

“Please Naya,” her voice barely above a whisper now, threatening your resolve.

“There’s nothing wrong,” you finally manage to mumble, still staring at your own hands as if they were the most fascinating things in the world.

“Come on Nay, I think I know you better than that, just tell me.”

And then she does it, she cups your chin with her hand and lifts your head. You almost feel like you’re in a movie and everything is in slow motion. You’re screaming at yourself like you would the television set when the person on screen is going to do something so unbelievably stupid it defies all reasoning.

But still, you’re staring into her eyes now, and everything is there, the pain, the frustration, the anger, the denial, the desire and the love. Most of all, the love. You know she sees, she understands.

Nothing is ever going to be the same between you again and because of that, because you might never get a chance to be this close to her again and mostly, because you simply can’t tame the desire anymore, you kiss her.

It’s not a soft kiss, it’s teeth and tongue and months of pent up craving finally let loose. It’s her body slamming into the wall behind you and yours into her. It’s your fingers tangling forcefully in her hair trying to pull her that much closer.

It’s everything and it’s nothing.

You don’t think you could possibly take anymore but it’s over too soon. You’re stumbling away from her, turning to run out of the bathroom, out of the club to somewhere, anywhere, that isn’t _here_.

Before the bathroom door is even all the way open she’s behind you, your name falling from her lips in a plea for you to stay, to talk about what just happened, but you can’t stay, can’t hear the apologies as she tries to explain why you are never going to be more than friends.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Walking away from her is the hardest thing you have ever done in your life.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

You know you should run after her, talk this out, try to make some sense of what just happened but it took all of your strength just to make it to the door without having your knees buckle.

As the door slams behind her, you lean against the tiled wall, relishing the cool smoothness against your overheated back. Your breathing is still ragged and the insistent pounding of your heart mimics the throbbing you feel elsewhere.

Catching your reflection in the mirror above the sink you almost don’t recognise yourself. Are your eyes really that glazed, lips that swollen, can it be that your hair is the epitome of ‘just been fucked’ and yet you’ve not been anymore than kissed?

You stay glued to the wall until another club-goer pushes open the door and the sudden blast of loud music jolts you back to reality.  You know you need to go back out there, back to him, your boyfriend, the man you are in love with. It shouldn’t be as hard as it seems to walk over to the sink, freshen up and head back into the bar. It shouldn’t be hard at all, but it is.

Unsurprisingly, you find him propping up the bar. There’s a beer in one hand and the fingers of his other appear to be tapping in time to the music against the glass bottle. He catches your eye as you draw closer and you can see his lips move, forming words that become lost in the roar of a hundred other people trying to make themselves heard over the music.

You shake your head as you come to stand next to him, one of your fingers pointing at your ear and he leans close to you. His breath feels hot and wet on your skin and you can smell the alcohol he’s been drinking. A small part of your mind realises that wanting to step back and put a few feet of personal space around yourself isn’t a normal reaction to have in the presence of your boyfriend.

Nothing about this whole evening has been normal and suddenly you want nothing more than to go home and curl up in bed. Ignoring the words from him you still couldn’t quite make out, you tell him you want to leave. His hearing must be better than yours because he nods his understanding and finishes his beer in one long pull of the bottle. It would be quite an impressive feat under normal circumstances.

The entire taxi ride home you’re silent. He grabs your hand after you’ve settled into the backseat and pulls it across into his lap. There is so much about the evening you still need to process so to ward off any unwanted conversation you rest your head against the cool glass of the window pane and close your eyes. Hopefully he will assume you’ve fallen asleep.

It’s not as if you weren’t aware of Naya’s ambiguous sexuality. It wasn’t anything you had ever explicitly discussed but there was enough in your conversations for you to draw conclusions. It had just never entered your head that she might have feelings for you. Of course, you were best friends and there had always been a closeness between you that you’d never shared with anyone else, but that was normal for a best friend, wasn’t it?

 The big question is what happens now? You love Taylor, you’ve known him for years and you were just getting to the point in your relationship where you imagined you’d spend the rest of your life with him. There is a part of you that wishes you could travel back in time and stop yourself from following Naya into that bathroom. At least you wouldn’t be in this mess now. A bigger part of you, the part that is currently replaying the entire kiss back through your mind, can’t possibly begin to regret it.

The taxi pulls up to your apartment just as you are beginning to drown in an endless sea of ‘what ifs’ and you are momentarily shaken from your thoughts as you go through the motions of paying the driver.

Later, feigning tiredness and a headache, you curl up on your side of the bed, the muted sound of the TV from the living room doing nothing to drown out the thoughts still running rampant through your mind.

The ‘what ifs’ shouldn’t matter, you try to tell yourself, in the here and now you are with Taylor, you love Taylor.

 _But_ , the devil on your shoulder questions, _are you_ in _love with him?_

You can’t answer and it’s something that scares you more than anything you have ever known.


	3. Chapter 3

You try to avoid Heather for the next week, coming into contact with her only when it is absolutely necessary. Avoiding her is surprisingly easy. Avoiding the crushing pain in your chest whenever your eyes accidentally meet across set is an entirely different story.

You knew it would be weird between you, how could it not? You didn’t know loosing something you never actually had would hurt this much. You could never have anticipated the gaping hole she would leave in your life.

She’s tried to talk to you several times but you just can’t sit and listen to her reasons as to why she can’t be any more than your friend. If it hurts too much now, how much more is it going to hurt to actually hear those words spoken aloud?

Sometimes, when you just can’t help yourself, your eyes stray over to her, watching as she goes about her routine. It’s almost like you are trying to drink in every detail possible; forever etching the angles of her face into your mind or simply getting lost in the way she makes even the simplest of movements flow into her own private dance.

So many times you’ve replayed the kiss frame by frame, surrounded yourself with the feel of her pressed against you, the way you slid perfectly together, how her body surged against your own as your tongues met.

It’s torture, but it’s the only thing you have left.

Often, after shaking yourself out of these daydreams, the desire to bang your head against the nearest hard object rears up as the only thoughts running through your mind become variations of 'stupid, stupid, stupid' and 'fucking idiot, couldn't you just keep it in your pants.'

You had always done a good job of masking your inner thoughts concerning Heather. It would have perhaps been a different story if she had been single - there was more between you, you thought, than was normal for good friends, but then she told you about Taylor and that changed everything.

There had forever been time on your side until suddenly it was gone. Suddenly you found yourself playing the supportive best friend as you listened to plans for the perfect future you’d never be able to give her.

She never seemed to notice that your responses were always a little too enthusiastic or your smile a little too wide. You told yourself to suck it up, if she was happy so were you, but during the nights you spent alone, nursing that one-too-many glass of wine, you laughed bitterly at the person who originated that saying. If she was happy you were miserable, but you were just selfless enough to accept your misery in exchange for her happiness. It didn’t mean you couldn’t drown your sorrows with a $300 bottle of wine on occasion.

It was on one of those rare evenings you were letting yourself wallow that she turned up outside your apartment. If you’d actually looked through the peephole before answering you’d have probably ignored her. But you didn’t and now she’s here, in your space, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. Her eyes are shining as she takes your hand and tells you you’re her best friend and she loves you but she’s with Taylor.

You laugh. You laugh so goddamn hard you’re almost sick because you’re pretty sure you had this conversation not two months ago. Only that time, she was Brittany and you were Santana and afterwards she made goofy faces at you until you cheered up because it was only acting and although you both knew how important the storyline was, you had to distance yourself from your characters’ pain in order to function.

But this was your pain and before you know what’s happening, the laughter has morphed into tears and you’re curled up, foetal-like, in the corner of your sofa as your body shakes. You can see Heather through your tears, perched on the coffee table in front of you, hands wringing as she tries to decide what to do. You close your eyes and let the tears continue, it’s like you have no control over your body now you’ve let yourself go.

Sometime later, you’re aware of hushed voices, then there’s an arm fitting around your back, pulling you into an embrace and you start to fight it until you become aware that it’s not Heather. Looking up through bleary eyes, you see compassionate brown ones looking back and fall gladly into Lea’s embrace, clinging on tightly as she strokes your back and rocks you gently in a way that reminds you of how your Mom comforted you when you were little.

She’s speaking in a low, calm voice, telling you it’ll be okay, it’ll get better, and you want to scream at her that it won’t, that you _love_ Heather and she tore you down and nothing will ever be okay again. But you can’t form words around the tears so you just let them fall and pull her a little closer, hold her a little tighter.

Eventually, you calm enough so you don’t struggle when Lea stands you both up and guides you through to your bedroom. When she makes to leave the room, after getting you settled in bed, you suddenly can’t bear the thought of being alone. She nods when you ask her to stay and slides into the bed next to you. Your head immediately settles on her shoulder and your arm around her waist and she starts to run her fingers over your back again, humming softly to a tune you don’t recognise. After a few minutes, exhaustion finally sets in and you sleep.

Lea has already made coffee and waffles when you wake up. You sit numbly at the kitchen table as she moves around you, setting your cup and plate down before staring at you until you take a bite of waffle and wash it down with a mouthful of coffee. It tastes like cardboard but you clean your plate under Lea’s watchful eye.

You think about getting ready for work, but the thought of having to face Heather leaves you wanting to forcefully eject your breakfast so you continue to sit at the table, absently watching as Lea finishes her own breakfast and cleans up the plates.

“I’ll tell Ryan you’re not feeling well,” Lea says.

You feel like crying again when she places a comforting hand on your shoulder and offers a small smile so you only nod in response.

“You’ll be okay?”

“Yeah.”

She nods and gathers her things up, pulling you into a quick hug before leaving.

As the door closes behind her you lean your forehead against the cool wood, trying desperately to stop the tears from coming. You’ll be okay. You will. You have to be.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s only been a week since you witnessed your best friend break down in front of you, _because_ of you, and you miss her. You miss her so much and you know it’s selfish but you just don’t know what to do with yourself when she’s not around. You were permanently joined at the hip on set and now, now she’s gone. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve turned to share a joke, roll your eyes at some stupid thing someone on the cast was doing or simply share a smile, only to remember she’s not there. She’s not there and it’s your fault and your chest aches every single time.

She’s professional, of course. In the few scenes you have had together, she slips into Santana’s skin like it’s second nature, which it probably is by now, and the emotion shines through every word she speaks. But as soon as she hears ‘cut’, her eyes turn blank and she walks off set without even looking back.

You want to run after her, pull her into your arms and comfort her until you can see life in her eyes again. You want to dig your fingers in her ribs and make her laugh until her eyes are shining with tears of happiness. You want to hold her like you used to do, limbs entwined on a sofa barely big enough for one and just _feel_ her next to you.

But you made your choice. You love Taylor. You chose him. Naya is your best friend, but that’s all. She’ll get over you eventually and then you can go back to how you were. She just needs time, so do you. It’s a mantra you repeat almost hourly.

It helps some of the time, but it’s of no use at all in your next big scene together. For the first time ever, you break character. No one notices, they think you’re simply adding to the directions you were given, but she’s standing in front of you, looking at you with those god damn eyes, and it’s just too intimate. You feel laid bare before her gaze, helpless under the onslaught of emotion ripping through you and the tears that start to well up in your eyes are entirely out of your control. Eventually, you have to focus on the wall behind her head, just to make it through the scene without breaking completely.

It’s when you get home after work and you’re alone in your apartment, no longer able to stop the tears from falling, that you first admit to yourself that you might have made the wrong choice. That living without her in your life shouldn’t feel like this. That you’ve _never_ felt this lost when Taylor wasn’t around. In fact, with him, even though you love his visits and enjoy the time you spend together, you barely notice when he’s not there.

As you stumble around your apartment later that evening, getting ready for bed, you come across and old t-shirt of Naya’s and before you can stop yourself, you’re pulling it over your head. There’s a split second of lightness in you as the shirt settles around your body and you’re surrounded by her scent. It’s warm and comforting until you remember that she’s probably never going to set foot in your apartment again to claim it back and eventually all evidence that the shirt was hers will fade away.

It’s with that thought and the knowledge that you can’t let Naya fade out of your life, that you come to a new decision.

When you ask Taylor if he would bring his next visit forward, he already knows something is wrong and agrees without hesitation, says he will be on the next flight out to LA. You’re pacing the apartment nervously when he finally arrives and you can’t bear to meet his eyes. He hugs you in greeting and you stiffen, bracing yourself for what you have to do. It hurts but you know now it’s the right choice, the one you should have made three weeks ago.

Before you even have chance to speak he’s in there before you. “We’re breaking up, aren’t we?” He asks.

You nod. “I’m sorry.” The tears are starting to fall, but there’s no doubt in your mind now.

“It’s because of Naya, isn’t it?”

You wonder when he got so perceptive but nod again and he continues, “It’s okay, Heather. I think I’ve always known I’d end up losing you to her. I’ve just been clinging to the past, to what we had. I should have been brave enough to let you go before now.”

And it’s in that moment, his words sinking in as your heart beats almost painfully in your chest that you realise you’ve never loved him more but it’s still not enough. He knows that.

“Go get her,” he says.

And before the words are even all the way out of his mouth, you’re running out of the door, hoping you’re not too late.

The journey to her apartment is the longest one of your life. Your hands are trembling as they grip the steering wheel and your chest feels so tight you have difficulty drawing breath. It’s a route you know well, though, so you’re pulling up in front of her apartment without having consciously taken the drive.

You’re at her door, pausing to knock, before you realise you don’t even know what you’re going to say. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because you’re here and you love her and that’s all you need to know.

She opens the door and your mouth starts forming words and you have no idea what’s coming out but she’s crying and hugging you and finally, finally, her lips are pressed against yours and the tightness in your chest evaporates as you sink into the warmth of her arms.

She pulls away finally and looks at you, cupping your face with her hands. The smile on her face is small, tentative, like she can’t actually believe you’re here. You just can’t believe it took you so long to get here.

“You’re all mine?” She asks.

“Forever,” you say and you’ve never meant anything more than that one word.


End file.
